by Kyle Starr

Tag Archives: nostalgia

March 30, 2015 marked the 25th anniversary of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. In commemoration, The Hollywood Reporter rounded up several cast and crew members to recount the making of the highest grossing independent film at the time.

Gray: I always thought it would be interesting to have someone who was coming out of MTV videos to amp this up visually. To make it a little bit younger. Director Steve Barron was suggested to us. We looked at his reel. He had done all this great stuff with A-ha. He had done “Billie Jean” with Michael Jackson. He had a very good visual style.

Steve Barron, director: I didn’t want to do something that was bloody. I didn’t want to watch that film. Funnily enough, Batman came out at the same time. It was that sort of tone I was already aiming for. The films that I loved, there was a sense of humor but a sense of peril as well. Of real peril, of grounded peril. Like something that had repercussions for what you did but had a wonderful sense of fun with it. I was a big fan of Ghostbusters.

[…]

Eastman: For an independent film, it was beyond our wildest hopes. We liked the final movie and we hoped people would like it, and [the fact] it did as well as it did was fantastic. Of all the versions of Turtles that have been optioned over the past 30 years now — and certainly in the entertainment arena — the first movie stands out as our hands-down favorite version.

The next two words on the list, nostalgia and insidious, saw huge increases in use this year, primarily because of their entertainment connection. Nostalgia was used in discussions about the television series Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire, and other cultural milestones like the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ arrival in America. “We saw more than a 100% increase in lookups of nostalgia this year,” says Kory Stamper, an Associate Editor at Merriam-Webster. “It was certainly used in reference to pop culture and television, but it was also used as a way to frame larger political discussions. We spotted examples of nostalgia used in connection with the annexation of Crimea and the defeat of Eric Cantor. People often think of nostalgia as a return to ‘good old days,’ so these uses that go beyond the personal may have surprised some readers and sent them to the dictionary.”

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Lookups for feminism were strong throughout the year, as the word was used in many highly publicized comments–from the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision to the Gamergate controversy. One big spike came after TIME announced its 100 Most Influential People–a list including Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, and Pharrell Williams. TIME’s claim that 2014 was the “year of pop feminism” sent many people to the dictionary.

In 2014, more than ever (and for reasons other than Merriam-Webster’s), I seemed to obsess over the idea of nostalgia. It coursed through many of my pieces including Hail Mario, Golden Age Thinking, and Iterative vs. Redesigned Experiences. It also seemed to be a common theme strewn out through several of Nintendo’s recent first-party titles: The Excitebike Arena in Mario Kart 8, NES Remix, and the plethora of new characters and legacy nods in Super Smash Bros. to name a few.

On the topic of feminism, it is very interesting to see just how large the Gamergate conversation has become. 2014 felt like a truly remarkable year for the feminist movement and this list offers a small shred of proof.

They’re my madeleines, you could say, transporting me back to the days my love of video games was personal and private, only shared with the neighbor kids and never ever disclosed at school, where it would have been taken for a weakness. The world has changed.

“Furthermore, no game you and I are excited to play right now will continue to sell copies like A Tale of Two Cities. The majority of enjoyable games are disposable. Even the number of brands that could predictably succeed in this capacity is microscopic. Part of this comes from the brand problem, which is that every video game sequel seems to be about doing something better rather than having something to say. They don’t really add to the art — they improve on past mistakes. Games are too often too busy chasing the technology ahead of them that there’s little room (or budget) left to chase anything else — design, emotional engagement, or individuality, for instance.”